Brothers and sisters!

1. Russia has lost its remaining shreds of decency. The lying, conniving and treachery of the Kremlin leadership goes beyond any limits imaginable. The undeclared war against Ukraine is becoming more and more obvious, even to the most naive of outsider observers.

Yesterday, units of the Russian army were fighting their way into the Donbas by breaking through into Ukrainian territory in two directions at once. The Ukrainian army punched them in the teeth. Russian paratroopers were taken prisoner. The Russian Ministry of Defense declared that the Russian soldiers ended up on the Ukrainian territory “by accident.”

To say that Moscow’s cynicism is astounding–is to say nothing. For months on end, Russians have been “accidentally” killing Ukrainians on Ukrainian soil and “accidentally” supplying arms to terrorists; they also “accidentally” downed a Malaysian Boeing [MH-17] (while trying to “accidentally” shoot down a Ukrainian AN-26). I think it would only be logical if during Putin’s next visit to any civilized country, he would be accidentally arrested, accidentally tried and accidentally hanged (true, most civilized countries eschew the death penalty … but accidents happen).

In reality, Putin did not invent any “hybrid war” (African countries fought in this war format for half of the 20th century). His accomplishment is that he invented a “war for cowards.” Its essence lies in the fact that, before Putin, even the most cunning and treacherous dictator would somehow be responsible for the aggression he started. Putin is the first to come up with a way to use overwhelming lies and disingenuity to drown the neighboring country in blood, while bearing no responsibility for the slaughter. There is neither intelligence nor strategic brilliance here–only ingrained villainy.

2. Moscow is going to push another “humanitarian convoy” into Ukraine.

With his little eyes gleaming like a seasoned kleptomaniac, Sergey Lavrov, head of the Russian MFA and a professional propagandist declared, “Yesterday, we sent an official note to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, informing [them] of our intention to prepare the next convoy of humanitarian aid.”

So, these bastards no longer bother to get permission to bring cargo into a foreign country. They simply “inform” of it. Then again, after the first “humanitarian aid” illegally entered into the Donbas, it would have been hard to expect otherwise.

3. Ukrainian media spread some sad news–at the current “Customs Union–Ukraine–European Union” meeting in Minsk, Belarus, Putin dedicated “less than 3% of his speech” to the armed conflict in Ukraine.

I’m a bit confused–what is so strange about that? Do you often see a maniac and a murderer flaunting his deeds in public? Like any criminal, VVP [Putin] will savor the details of his self-made Donbas massacre later, in a close circle of henchmen, with his sidekick [Sergey] Shoygu pouring prison chifir, the slag [Dmitry] Kiselyov huddling by the marble Kremlin toilet, and the merry jokester [Vladimir] Zhirinovsky beating on a guitar and singing The Folsom Prison Blues.

In public, Putin cannot afford such luxury.

The good news:

1. The situation in the ATO area, unfortunately, gives no cause to launch celebratory fireworks, but neither is there reason to panic and shout ‘all is lost.’

According to our information, adequate measures are being used in the Ilovaisk area–we cannot give out the details (and hope it isn’t a false start). Troubling messages arrive from the south, but we found no confirmation to the reports of some wide-scale “advance” of Russian troops on Novoazovsk (our data shows that clashes are happening in this area, but those involve enemy forces that broke through earlier that have not been destroyed yet–we are currently confirming this information).

At the same time, the ATO forces are carrying out raids, and simultaneously regrouping in several areas of the operation. We hope to see these actions followed by more optimistic reports.

AP Photo/RIA-Novosti, Alexei Druzhinin, Presidential Press Service

2. President Poroshenko, in the meeting with the heads of the Eurasian troika and EU representatives in Minsk, suggested that all parties in the conflict in Ukraine exit from it “while saving face.”

How the current negotiations in Minsk will end, and what result they will give today, if any–that we don’t know. At least, for now. But it is clear that Putin has two options–to leave the situation now, with his hands bloody to the elbows, or to drown in that blood entirely. Hopefully, he understands that in the history of the world, such blood baths have ended well for no one.

3. Today, at an urgent meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, it was decided that–security forces will buyout all military equipment produced by Ukroboronprom [Ukrainian Defense Industry] State Enterprise and immediately ship it off to the combat action area. Repair of military equipment from now on will be carried out without delays, and armaments promptly issued from the MOD warehouses on requisition of the ATO forces.

I think that if such a decision had taken place two months ago, the ATO would have gone much better thus far. However, military officials still have a chance to sabotage this useful initiative even now. Let’s hope that will not be the case.

These are recons in force to determine the UA’s strength on the northern and southern flanks of the “Donebas Saliant”. If the flanks are weak, they attack there and attempt to encircle the ATO units. If they are strong the Russians will continue to probe and force UA to spread out to protect them. Meanwhile Russia will continue to build up it’s forces in the “Donebas Salient”. When the time is right they will attempt a break out to the north towards Slavyansk and south toward Maripul.
Having cut off the majority of the UA army and secured “Novo Russia” they will declare a cease fire. and eventually annex the area.
This is classic Soviet tactics.
UA needs to bring up the three brigades that were manhandled along the boarder and move the 1st guards Armored Brigade into a position to blunt the the attack some where due east of Donetsk.

Nice to see there is someone with a practical mind. I would like to add three comments if you allow me to:

1) Whatever is to be done should be done before the rains begin to fall
2) Warfighters should study the story of Rommel’s Africa Corps and take note of the way armor was employed. Both of his armored divisions were held together in close formation.
3) From the nothern to the southern flank the front is 120km long, may be more. A brigade covers a front of like 5-8km. Both the UA and the russians will be stretched. It will be difficult for one to encircle the other because the encircling force needs a hell of a lot more troops.

I think the winner will be the one who can identify the decisive point and amass (all of) his troops to that location. If this isn’t applied we will have stalemate.

Thanks for the response.
You right the the troops are spread fairly thin but cutting off a unit makes supply and reinforcement difficult and has a powerful physiological and political effect.
You also right about the rains and Napoleon’s 5th demention of war: MUD. If it is going to happen it will have t happen soon.
I have been advocating UA mass it’s armor and artillery for a large scale assault. Additionally they need to use their air mobile capability. Breaking through the corridor to isolate Donetsk some where in the vicinity of Shakhars’k. The terrain there is fairly open. Either that or and attack towards Khartsyz’k but that area is more urbanized. This will sound cold blooded but civilian causalities are going to have to be a lesser priority. Speed and violent execution are essential. To suppot the assualt the 94th Paras shoud air assult north side of Shakhars’k. cut off reinforcement and tie up the rebel defendersin the south of town.
Engaging the Russian build up in the pocket earlier will be better than later.

We are in perfect agreement, especially with regard to Shakhars’k. You are absolutely right it is a vital point (and the more so when one considers the recent activity along the Starobesheve-Novoazovsk axis).

A good piece of news comes from Jane’s Defense weekly. The US and Croatia are in negotiations to trade 20 Black hawks for 14 Mi-8s that will be sent to UA.
This will really make up some losses
I have also seen twitter comments Slovakia may turn over some Hinds.(Not real sure about the reliability of this report) Poland is also going to buy western attack helicopters. Hopefully UA can buy them.

My friends and I all Americans and veterans of US Army begged the MOD to let us go help them fix their broken down tanks in Karkiv at the dead tank lot. All of us we’re Tank mechanics in Army. We wrote we called we asked we we’re totally ignored. We could have got a couple of tanks a week running. But their just Russian traitors who don’t want tanks to work.

How come Poroshenko will not clean out traitors in MOD and Interior Ministry? Why does this go on and on with units being surrounded like Donbas and Dniper have been this week. Our American hero Franko said they we’re sending people to front at ATO without weapons? America has been afraid to set up the Ukrainian Migs with Air defence systems because of the amount of Russians in high command. Why doesn’t the MOD arm the population by handing out more weapons? Price of AK’s on black market have gone crazy.

Ukraine could win but not with all scum Russians in high level military positions. It’s shame

@pikos. I wouldn’t call that “incompetence”, that’s not boody cooking. Ukraine can’t just send hundreds of thousands of paratroopers, tanks and helis there to cover everyhing with fire as US army does. They haven’t got enough forces in first instance and they can’t just shoot at civilians where the “separacist” are hiding. This is not simple military combat. There’s too much politics in that; more like US National Guard fighting US internal affairs.

@pit,I disagree with you.
There is no us national Guard, fighting int affairs in Ukraine. Things are crystal clear.
We in Greece been in a situation like that exactly after ww2.were communists tried to overthrow the government and then started guerilla warfare which fledged into a full scale civil war. The problem with Macedonia and fyrom even was created at that time, because the communists promised tito Macedonia, if he helped them. Any ways.
There must be a cleanse in ukr military, you can’t be fighting a war and having your command, be enemy sympathizers..
Another thing i can’t comprehend, is why have Ukrainians abandoned they’re armed forces for so long? I mean you had one of the largest mil industries and all you did, was to sell mil equipment in the black market.. And now you’re fighting with totally ineffective t64’s,helos and mil systems in general… You don’t even have an airforce!! What kind of an army gives up weapons and departs, as in Crimea happened? There should a draft and people joining en masse, in Ukraine we see people defecting, or crying wtf!!!
Don’t you people love your country?
Do you consider donbas as non-Ukrainian?
More over, you cry out for help from the EU, when Germany, France are so interconnected with Russia, what the fuck do you expect from them?
Didn’t you see what they did to Greece?
They don’t care for Ukraine, they saw you as cheap labor force! Even your industry in the EU would be destroyed, you have huge military industry, which is directly opposing the francogerman one, how do you see it? Would they allow you to make it flourish?
You have to make do, on your own.
Forgive me for being so irritating, but it is sadness mostly. You have a great country that suffered much from the Russians, now it’s suffering from the EU and Russia, it’s like being in a pincer. Don’t let it die..

YOU ARE COMPLETELY RIGHT. AND BEFORE THAT, FRANCE, ENGLAND AND WEST EUROPE ABANDONED GREECE IN TH 1921-22 WAR AGAINST TURKEY. GREECE HAD THE FORCES, BUT NOT ENOUGH WEAPONRY. THEY COULD HAVE RECLAIMED ALEXANDROPOLIS AND AT LEAST REACHED AND CONQUERED THE EUROPEAN SIDE OF CONSTANTINOPLE. THEY FANNED THE FIRE AND LEFT GREECE HANGING. AS A RESULT MILLIONS OF GREEKS WERE BANISHED FROM SMYRNA AND PONTICUS, THOUSANDS DIED AND TENS OF
THOUSANDS LOST ALL THERE PROPERTIES AND HOMES.
THEY TRUSTED THE WEST NOT ONCE, BUT TWICE, COUNTING THE CIVIL WAR.

Hopefully, the Ukrainian President will place the Russian-Ukrainian border under a serious lock-down sooner rather than later in order to protect the lives of his civilian population.
There are too many civilian casualty such as the latest woman victim in the Donetsk city whose image of torture at a lamp post was featured by the NYT.
There are reportedly so many episodes of Ukrainian victims already but the Russian-Ukrainian border is not yet completely closed, unfortunately, as far as I remember. This is while even the Red Cross already classified the E-Ukainian conflict as an international conflict, a classic war, in July.

Meanwhile, yesterday, the Ukrainian President had to attend the Minsk Meeting to “negotiate” with the obvious aggressor from the Kremlin while the aggressor, the Russian President Putin, had no intention to stop his aggression. Reportedly, Putin kept on denying that his Russian troops were invading Ukraine even though there were televised reports of the captured Russian troops the same day. His diplomat, Foreign Minister Lavrov, managed to come out to smoke (he is a well known cigarette addict though) during a very important private meeting with the Ukrainian side, too, reportedly.
Most of the global public saw almost zero seriousness in the manner the Russian leadership was “negotiating”, I suspect.

Yesterday, the Ukrainian President had to “negotiate” with such liars in Minsk, Belarus. So, the Minsk Meeting was nothing but a Russian smokescreen to distract the global public from the ongoing military aggression in Ukraine by the Russian President.
This was very sad.
The investigation of the shootdown of the flight MH17 is not complete yet, either.

So, I suspect there was no need for the Ukrainian side to send the President to the meeting yesterday. Sure, the global public felt assured to see him diplomatically greeting smiling Putin with a rather angry face, by the way (a petrifying moment for the Kazakh President who was watching it, as the internet community found out yesterday).
However, the Ukrainian President could have postponed such an unnecessary diplomacy, a distraction, until most of his military goals (say 80 percent of his military goals) get achieved in the eastern Ukraine.

Hopefully, the Ukrainian President will completely close the Russian border in order to protect the civilians as well as his troops (especially the selfless Volunteer Battalions including the late American volunteer known as Franco) from the not-so-new Russian Guerilla Warfare garbage.
So-called negotiation and diplomacy will come later, I am sure.